Report details killing of bombing suspect's friend

FILE- This May 4, 2013 file photo provided by the Orange County Corrections Department in Orlando, Fla., shows Ibragim Todashev after his arrest for aggravated battery in Orlando. A report released Tuesday, March 25, 2014, determined that an FBI agent was justified in fatally shooting Todashev, who became violent after he had agreed to give a statement about his involvement in a triple slaying in Massachusetts last May. (AP Photo/Orange County Corrections Department)
The Associated Press

FILE- This May 4, 2013 file photo provided by the Orange County Corrections Department in Orlando, Fla., shows Ibragim Todashev after his arrest for aggravated battery in Orlando. A report released Tuesday, March 25, 2014, determined that an FBI agent was justified in fatally shooting Todashev, who became violent after he had agreed to give a statement about his involvement in a triple slaying in Massachusetts last May. (AP Photo/Orange County Corrections Department)

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A Chechen mixed-martial-arts fighter grew increasingly agitated as he wrote a confession about his role in a 2011 triple slaying that got renewed attention after the Boston Marathon bombing, flipping a coffee table at an FBI agent and charging a Massachusetts State Police trooper with a pole before the agent shot him dead, according to an investigative report.

The report released by State Attorney Jeff Ashton's office in Orlando on Tuesday cleared the FBI agent of any criminal charges in the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev last May. Separately, the Justice Department filed its own report Tuesday, echoing the Florida findings.

Todashev was shot after being questioned in his Orlando, Fla., apartment for nearly five hours by the FBI agents and two troopers about the 2011 triple murder in Waltham, Mass. The FBI learned of Todashev during their investigation into his former sparring buddy, Boston marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

It wasn't long before authorities focused on whether the men had any involvement in the Waltham killings. In that case, three men were found in an apartment with their necks slit and their bodies reportedly covered with marijuana. One of the victims was a boxer and Tsarnaev's friend.

Friends of the men have said they presumed the killings were drug-related, but police never confirmed that and the investigation is ongoing.

Federal authorities have said in court filings that Todashev also implicated Tsarnaev in the slayings, but the Justice Department report said the details of the confession were not being released publicly at the request of Massachusetts prosecutors.

Investigators had questioned Todashev several times in the weeks before he was killed and they knew what he was capable of. They had watched videos of his MMA fights and recognized his quick temper, in part because of a previous road rage episode, according to the reports.

The FBI agent and two Massachusetts troopers felt they were making progress during their late-night questioning of Todashev, and one trooper texted to a prosecutor in Massachusetts that Todashev had admitted to his role in the slayings. "Who's your daddy?" the trooper joked in a text.

One of the Massachusetts troopers told investigators that Todashev's mood changed right before he was to write the statement.

Todashev asked to go to the bathroom and then asked for more cigarettes even though he seemed to have plenty in his pack, raising worries that he was trying to minimize the number of law enforcement officers in the room, the trooper told investigators. On the trip back from the bathroom, the trooper became more worried because Todashev appeared to be purposely walking slowly. As a precaution, the trooper grabbed a samurai sword hanging on a wall and hid it in the kitchen.

He then sent a text to his fellow investigators: "Be on guard, he is in vulnerable position to do something bad. Be on guard now."

After Todashev waived his Miranda rights, he started writing on a white legal pad.

"'Okay. I'm going to tell you I was involved in it,'" Todashev told the investigators, according to an FBI chronology cited in the Florida report.